More members of Congress are recognizing that just like oil and water, consumer protection and crypto corruption don’t mix. Trump’s crypto empire has become a source of profits and power that shows blatant disregard for ethics — even as he promotes crypto policies that will enrich him and his crypto allies — which has become impossible to overlook.
“People place a lot of value, besides economic value, on where they live, and a lot of people don’t have the resources to move anyway,” said Alex Martin, policy director at Climate and Finance at Americans for Financial Reform. “People aren’t able to afford the cost increases that are coming right now. And if they can’t do that, just raising rates continuously will not be a holistic solution.”
Yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee voted on party lines to strip away consumer and investor protections to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and corporations as part of the budget reconciliation package. The Committee’s legislation included deep cuts to the funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an agency dedicated to protecting people from financial predation and scams.
Few tax loopholes better exemplify how our rigged economy rewards wealth extraction over real work than the carried interest loophole. The controversial loophole exists to benefit some of the wealthiest people on Wall Street—especially private equity executives—at the expense of workers, communities, and the public.
Public pensions hold trillions of dollars of workers’ capital — wages earned by teachers, firefighters, nurses, and public workers who keep our society running. But this money is under attack.
Today, the Private Equity Climate Risks (PECR) data consortium project launched an asset tracker with new data reflecting the state of private equity energy investments as of April 2025. This enhanced Global Energy Tracker includes the previous Global Energy Company Tracker, updated in January 2025, and the new Global Fossil Fuel Asset Tracker, providing an unparalleled look into the private equity industry’s role in the energy sector.
View or download a PDF of the letter here. Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund submitted a statement for the record for a hearing held by the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee of the House Education and Workforce Committee titled “Investing for the Future: Honoring
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration moved aggressively to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), leaving the public vulnerable to predation by Wall Street, Big Tech, and predatory lenders, and satisfying the financial industry’s desire to operate without oversight. Elon Musk declared war on the CFPB, and the Republican-majority in Congress has largely aligned with the administration’s efforts to tear apart the CFPB.
Proposals from the House Financial Services Committee majority for budget reconciliation would defund and dramatically erode the effectiveness of key financial regulators under the pretense of generating budgetary savings as part of the House majority’s broader plan to pay for tax cuts for the very richest families, biggest business, and Wall Street firms. The real intention is to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the other agencies designed to reduce the likelihood and severity of future financial crises.
View or download a PDF of the letter here. Americans for Financial Reform and 348 other consumer, civil rights, labor, legal services and community organizations, and academics wrote to urge Congress to demand action to restore a strong and independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).